A couple years ago I met my sister and brother in law for some Easter camping at Umtanum Campground at the end of April and enjoyed camping and hiking. We decided to repeat the experience and Dave joined us this time.. This is a popular campground, since it was not Easter this weekend, and we ended up staying further south at Big Pines Campground. This campground is bigger and paved, but situated similarly along the Yakima River.
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| Big Pines Campground, not just a clever name |
Dave and I had the day off, so we arrived first and got set up. We had super nice camp-neighbors, who shared their homemade clam chowder with us for dinner. I gave them some of my peanutbutter chocolate chip cookies in return.
Here is Dave attempting some fishing... no bait and no barbs on hooks made it more difficult and he didn't pull any in. It looked relaxing though... I still have to renew my license.
One of the things I love most about this whole canyon is all the beautiful hills and bluffs. There are smooth rounded areas, rocky outcroppings, columnar basalt, and all of it changes with the different lighting, each angle of the sun picking up different contours and colors.
It was also delightful to trade the sounds of traffic (mostly), car alarms, leaf blowers and sirens for the enthusiastic singing of dozens of birds. Blackbirds and doves chattered and cooed all day, and the 1st night we heard a horned owl hooting as well.
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| Common Merganser pair |
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| Osprey |
While we were getting all set up at camp, a cool bug flew by us. It looked like a big yellow jacket at first and made a buzz when it flew. It landed on the picnic table and we saw that it was not a bee or wasp, but a beetle. This colorful beetle is a big black burying beetle. Very cute, but apparently enjoys dead carcasses, followed by romps across picnic tables. Yum.
One drawback at night at any of these campgrounds, is that there is a train track right across the river that is very much in use. Two to three trains a night came through, and when you are woken from a sound sleep to that banging, squealing, rattling and thunder your first thoughts is anything from "there is a 18-wheeler driving through my tent" to "aliens have attacked." Once you figure out what it is though, it's kind of interesting to listen to all the cars go by. I wouldn't want to live that close though!
The next morning I used my awesome Dutch oven to make fried potatoes and eggs. We soaked up some early sunshine and some caffeine and then we were off.
We drove back north to Umptanum Campground and hiked up the Umtanum Creek Canyon. It was busy with lots of hikers, campers, boaters, geologists, and an Public Lands clean up day crew. The hike starts out with a suspension bridge, and then walking under a little railroad bridge. I had to carry Adventure Dog... the combination of the train noises and the movements of the bridge had him wanting to skip this adventure.
Then it's off... up along the Umtanum Creek under the blue sky and between the rocky grassy hillsides, amongst the beauty of wildflowers, trees, beaver ponds, snakes and ticks. Haha, yeah.
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| Rosy and Kirby disappearing around the bend. |
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| Phlox |
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| Fruit trees planted by the homesteaders... it was lovely and humming with happy bees. |
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| The rare mountain-dwelling Rockslide Dog |
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| Balsamroot |
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| See the people in the background? They are actually on the trail. We took a side trip. |
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| I think this is larkspur |
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| Can you see the ground squirrel in this picture? |
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| One of several beaver dams |
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| There was an old farmstead in this canyon, and this is possibly the remant of a cart or buggy. |
Here are the scaly friends we made whilst we were hiking along. On the way in, I think we were just really looking at flowers and birds and the pretty pretty things, and on the way out, we were eyeing each blade of grass suspiciously for it might house a venomous snake. In total we saw just 5 snakes. Dave saw one that none of the rest of us saw, but from the description I'm guessing it was one of the 3 baby rattlers of the day. The other two were larger, maybe 2 to 2 1/2 feet long. One was near the creek we were walkign down to to eat lunch at. I got a great eerie shot of its tail. The other was coiled just off trail about 2 feet, rattling like crazy. My helpful camera decided I really wanted a picture of the twig in front of it, so I apologize for the fuzziness. I would have taken more, but Dave was ahead and I was holding Cedar, and Rosy, Chris and their dogs still needed to get by it along with two other hikers that came along also.
End of the hike, Rosy and Odin cooling off in the Yakima.
Once we we got back to camp, it was time to snack, relax and discover the little friends we and our dogs brought back from the bushes all over us. I never saw one at work before, but my sister brought (and I recommend) a thing called the Tick Key. Pulls them right off. Fun stuff.
It really was a great weekend though! I would do it again! Maybe during the week next year to avoid so many people.
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